Open-E Bloghttp://blog.open-e.com
Enterprise Storage OS and Software for Every BusinessWed, 20 Sep 2017 10:45:11 +0000en-ENhourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8Our VMworld 2017 Reviewhttp://blog.open-e.com/our-vmworld-2017-review/
http://blog.open-e.com/our-vmworld-2017-review/#respondTue, 12 Sep 2017 08:00:52 +0000http://blog.open-e.com/?p=48765Once again, Open-E had a chance to participate in the industry’s top event for digital workspace technology and cloud infrastructure professionals –VMworld 2017. The show took place from August 27 to 31, 2017 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Convention Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Here’s the scoop from the event.

Showcasing advanced features of Open-E JovianDSS

As every year, the exhibition was packed with exhibitors presenting their tools to enable business success. Our partners Nfina and AIC were showcasing their virtualized storage solutions with Open-E JovianDSS. The software provides:

High Availability Load-balanced Cluster with Ethernet, SAS or Fibre Channel

Meetings with our partners and customers

We were happy to meet visitors from all over the world at our Partners’ booths.

Open-E Software Solution with Storage and Backup for Virtual Environments

Open-E JovianDSS is a perfect choice for virtual storage environments when combined with VMware products, as it provides a storage appliance – a physical data storage server or a Storage Virtual Appliance, accessed via the iSCSI or NFS protocol. Additionally, the storage includes a built-in native backup and recovery functionality. The software is fully compatible with VMware ESXi / vCenter, which is confirmed through an official “VMware Ready for Storage” certification.

Thank you for joining us and see you soon!

We would like to thank all visitors who stopped by. The opportunity of a face-to-face conversation was a great pleasure for us. We are absolutely grateful for all the feedback and positive comments that we received in regards to our products. Now, the Open-E Team is looking forward to another big event, the IBC 2017. The International Broadcasting Covention, shortly IBC, has lately become one of the most influential technical events worldwide. It takes place from September 14 to 19, 2017 at the RAI Exhibition and Congress Centre in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

We joined forces with exhibiting partners who are going to showcase their storage solutions with Open-E JovianDSS software:

]]>http://blog.open-e.com/our-vmworld-2017-review/feed/0Why is Open-E JovianDSS a perfect storage solution for VMware?http://blog.open-e.com/why-is-open-e-joviandss-a-perfect-storage-solution-for-vmware/
http://blog.open-e.com/why-is-open-e-joviandss-a-perfect-storage-solution-for-vmware/#respondTue, 05 Sep 2017 06:00:33 +0000http://blog.open-e.com/?p=48720There are plenty of storage solutions on the market, but not all of them are noteworthy, as the most common solutions usually consist of data storage only. Additional data protection comes from other vendors. Open-E JovianDSS provides an enterprise-grade, feature-rich and highly available data storage solution with excellent native data protection – you only need one product to get it all. And this makes Open-E JovianDSS a perfect storage solution for virtualized computing environments, too. Here’s why:

In this article, we provide more detailed information about the functionalities that can greatly improve managing your virtual environments. As Open-E JovianDSS is VMware Ready Storage certified for VMware vSphere® 5.5, 6.0, 6.5, we specifically recomment this hypervisor. Almost 95% of Open-E customers are using our software for virtualization with VMware.

Data Storage and Security

Open-E JovianDSS is storing data with checksums, and using atomic commits of transaction groups every 5 seconds by default. This works as random to sequential IO conversion and accelerates random writes radically. While reading the data, checksums are calculated again and compared with the originally stored checksums. In case a matching error occurs, data are recreated from parity or read from a mirror, and the bad block is automatically redirected to a new one. This feature is known as self-healing, and it guarantees complete data integrity and resistance against bad media.

Thanks to atomic commit, incomplete writes are impossible and the storage pool is always consistent. This is why there is no need for a file system check or file system repair tools. The pool is always ready for import after a hardware crash incident. Because of cosmic radiation of magnetic media errors, data corruption may occur in time. The periodically executed scrub tool proves the integrity of all data on the pool, and repairs all errors automatically.

Continuous Data Protection

Open-E JovianDSS On- and Off-Site Data Protection enables creating rotational auto-snapshots of NAS (SMB, NFS) or SAN (iSCSI) volumes according to a retention-interval plan, and optionally asynchronously replicates the differences between snapshots to the local or remote destinations. It is possible to have different retention plans for source and destination pools. Additionally, you can set up multiple destinations for higher data security and redundancy. What is more, snapshots can be easily created every minute or even more often.

The Open-E JovianDSS On- and Off-site Data Protection retention-interval plan consists of a series of retention periods to interval associations, for example:

1hour_every_5min,3day_every_1hour,1month_every_1day

This means that users can set up replication every 5 minutes and keep the copies for 1 hour. Additionally, he can set up replication every hour and keep the copies for 3 days. Plus, he can set up copies every one day and keep them for 1 month, and so on and so forth.

The Open-E JovianDSS On- and Off-Site Data Protection feature is based on ZFS snapshots and ZFS Send-Receive. There is marginal (almost zero) system load cost of ZFS snapshot creation and maintenance. The send-receive function enables an immediate access to data changes between consecutive snapshots and it can start replicating the data differences even every minute. Because of the frequent replication of small data changes, the backup of everything (virtual-machines, applications, databases and regular files) can be done in the background with a marginal system load. Thanks to this solution, backups can be made around the clock with a possibility to access all previous versions, and with quick disaster recovery if necessary. This is a huge advantage compared to regular backup solutions that usually generate heavy load and are scheduled to run after-hours only.

Storing VMware datastores on Open-E JovianDSS-based appliances, enables the system administrator to execute disaster recovery plans for everything – quickly and simply. It also allows you to instantly recover single virtual machines with the latest or previous versions.

High Availability and Clustering

As for High Availability, the Open-E JovianDSS Advanced Metro HA Cluster option provides virtual machines availability during a failover event between two data centers. High Availability combined with On- and Off-Site Data Protection delivers a perfect computing environment. Additionally, the software can be configured as a Virtual Machine under ESXi to enable a hyper-converged solution.

Open-E regularly organizes Certified Engineer Trainings during which partner specialists from all over the world are trained to become Open-E Certified Engineers (OECEs). Usually, a training session lasts for two days. Up till now, OECE Trainings have already been held in over 20 locations (USA, Germany, the UK, Italy etc.). In fact, we have now over 350 Certified Engineers in total, more than 50 for Open-E JovianDSS alone.

In general, our partners’ engineers are trained to work effectively with Open-E software. The certification verifies whether the participant is able to set up and configure Open-E software (e.g. setting up backups, replication, snapshots, failover) and to provide valuable support to end-customers, as well as whether he (or she!) can easily implement it in an IT-environment. Some examples of topics:

What does this mean for the Open-E users? In case of the ZFS-based Open-E JovianDSS, the certified specialists are experienced and well-trained in installing and maintaining Open-E JovianDSS software. In many cases they can provide help without the customer filing a support ticket with Open-E.

A typical training day starts with the engineers unpacking their laptops and preparing for active lab work. After introducing our products, each attendee works on their respective Open-E JovianDSS VMs, set up by Open-E. Our experts accompany the future OECEs with their deep technical knowledge throughout the training. After two intense days full of technical information about the software, the engineers can prove their newly learned skills by taking a theoretical and practical exam.

Moreover, an OECE Training is a fantastic opportunity for us and our partners to meet and spend time efficiently working with like-minded people, to exchange technical knowledge and ensure the best possible support for our customers. Find an Open-E Partner in your area!

Now take a look at some more glimpses of our Open-E Certified Engineer Trainings.

If you are interested in taking part in our trainings, check out our Events Calendar and sign up for an OECE Training that interests you.

]]>http://blog.open-e.com/training-time-all-about-the-open-e-certified-engineer-trainings/feed/0Overview of Cluster Solutions with Open-E JovianDSShttp://blog.open-e.com/overview-of-cluster-solutions-with-open-e-joviandss/
http://blog.open-e.com/overview-of-cluster-solutions-with-open-e-joviandss/#respondFri, 14 Jul 2017 13:01:27 +0000http://blog.open-e.com/?p=48564A high availability cluster setup of data storage servers is one of the most secure business solutions. It allows for continuous access to the data and may increase performance in an active-active configuration. In general, a cluster is a set of servers that work together but behave like a single system, where each cluster node shares the data by means of the software used in the cluster environment. In this article, we would like to provide you with some basic information in regard to cluster solutions with the ZFS-based Open-E JovianDSS.

Open-E JovianDSS enables building cluster solutions to provide its users with integrated and high-performing data storage standards to achieve an efficient and responsive IT environment. Our cluster solutions are optimized for enterprise environments, as well as for small and medium businesses to reduce various risks and costs to the minimum while improving the performance. Open-E JovianDSS enables building many cluster configurations, below we present only some of the many possible options:

Cluster-in-a-Box (CiB)

Cluster with multiple JBODs over SAS

Cluster with multiple JBODs over Fibre Channel (FC)

Cluster over Ethernet

Cluster-in-a-Box (CiB)

A Cluster-in-a-Box is built of two servers and a common set of SAS hard drives (shared with both cluster nodes) configured as a mirror (RAID 1) or as a RAID-Z, all in one server enclosure. Such a solution simplifies the physical setup and deployment of a two-node HA storage cluster since as all the required cable connections are pre-configured between the internal components. In case of a node failure, the other node takes over all resources due to the failover process and serves them with no interruption.

A Cluster-in-a-Box solution is compact and complete, and it can be easily installed in a standard rack. There is an option to scale it up in by adding an external JBOD. For more info, go to the Solution article.

Cluster with multiple JBODs over SAS

A High Availability Cluster with multiple JBODs over SAS with Open-E JovianDSS is a setup with two server heads connected to a shared storage with two (or more) redundant JBODs. The maximum distance between nodes is 33 ft (10 m). The solution enables avoiding Single Points of Failure (SPOF) because the drives are mirrored between JBODs. All hard drives on one node are shared with the other node, by means of a physical connection of HDDs to both nodes. For more info, go to the solution article.

Cluster with multiple JBODs over Fibre channel

A High Availability Cluster with multiple JBODs over Fibre Channel (FC) is a typical cluster setup that works almost exactly the same as over a SAS connection. The choice between a SAS or FC connection depends on what kind of performance, distance between nodes and costs are demanded. In case of a Fibre Channel connection the distance is up to 31 miles (50 km) or more (with FC switches), thus a FC configuration is recommended for (Stretched) Metro Storage Cluster setups where both nodes are placed in different locations. In both the SAS or FC cases, the system can easily be scaled up by adding extra JBODs.

Cluster over Ethernet

A Cluster over Ethernet is another solution with Open-E JovianDSS that is built of two nodes. Each node in the configuration has its own hard drives attached directly to the node and indirectly served over Ethernet to the other node (after internal conversion of the protocol). It allows for using a commodity server that is made up of only SATA drives which makes the solution very cost-effective. The nodes might be located a very long distance apart as a (stretched) metro storage cluster – 50 miles (80 km) or even more. For further info, read the solution article.

]]>http://blog.open-e.com/overview-of-cluster-solutions-with-open-e-joviandss/feed/0Open-E DSS V7 SOHO setup exampleshttp://blog.open-e.com/open-e-dss-v7-soho-setup-examples/
http://blog.open-e.com/open-e-dss-v7-soho-setup-examples/#respondWed, 21 Jun 2017 06:00:17 +0000http://blog.open-e.com/?p=48364Do you want to start with Open-E software at no cost? Try the Open-E DSS V7 SOHO (Small Office Home Office), a free version of the well-known and appreciated Open-E DSS V7. The software enables its users to benefit from the basic functionalities of Open-E’s fully featured NAS/SAN product with initial capacity of 4TB. This base capacity can be easily increased, as we offer cost-effective storage extensions of 4, 8, 16, and 32TB (maximum DSS V7 SOHO capacity is 36TB). Additionally, the special Single Case Basic Support provides users with technical support via e-mail, in case any issue with your SOHO version appears.

In this article we would like to show you the results of a survey we’ve been conducting since a couple of months. We asked our users to share their setups, thoughts and experiences connected with implementing the SOHO version in their environments. Respondents have been very active (thanks for your appreciation!) and we have chosen some setups with Open-E DSS V7 SOHO to present in public.

Generally, 72% of responses where from private users and 28% were from business users. Apart from filling the fields with their setup details, respondents were to establish what they like the most in our software. Most frequently, administrators were using world-renowned hardware, e.g. Dell, Fujitsu, or HP. Below is a chart presenting what our users appreciate in Open-E DSS V7 SOHO.

As for the various setups that users shared with us, the first example is a setup set from a private user. What he appreciates about the software is the fact that it is a free product with a possibility to purchase additional inexpensive storage extensions anytime. Additionally, he is satisfied with the support options that come along with the product and last but not least – the advanced features. Setup details:

Processor: Intel Core i5

Memory: 2GB

HDD: 4x 4TB

Network: Intel Pro 1000

Another example also came from a private user who set up Open-E DSS V7 SOHO as a virtual machine. Here are the setup details:

Processor: Intel Celeron G1610T

Memory: 2x 8GB (6GB for Open-E VM)

HDD: 4x 3TB in RAID 10

Network: 332i Dual Port

The example below shows a setup from another private user with the following setup:

Processor: Intel i5

Memory: 16GB

HDD: 128GB SSD, 5x 3TB Seagate Constellation

Network: 4-port Intel Ethernet Server Adapter

Another one in turn appreciates the Open-E DSS V7 SOHO for the free features that are included in the software as well as the option of purchasing additional extensions. Setup details:

Processor: Intel Xeon E3-1230

Memory: 32GB

HDD: WD20EFRX (Red)

Network: Intel PRO/1000

Last but not least, a private user who also really appreciated the software’s features has used the following setup:

Processor: Intel

Memory: 4GB

HDD: 3TB (in total)

Network: Gigabit Ethernet

Want more storage space for free?

All registered Open-E DSS V7 SOHO users can invite their friends to test the software. Each invitation (provided that the invited person registers on the Open-E website) will result in being granted with 8TB extra storage space for free. This way, you can generate a new storage extension key to increase your storage capacity without the need to purchase storage extensions. You only need to take a few simple steps:

Send an e-mail invite to a friend who is not registered with Open-E yet

Your friend has to install and activate Open-E DSS V7 SOHO

After that, you will receive 8TB free additional storage for your own Open-E DSS V7 SOHO

Ransomware is a type of malicious software that blocks access to the victim’s data or threatens to publish or delete it until a ransom is paid. Any action is possible once device or system is infected and there is no guarantee that paying the ransom will return access or not delete the data. Simple ransomware may lock the system in a way which is not difficult for a knowledgeable person to reverse. More advanced malware uses a technique called cryptoviral extortion, in which it encrypts the victim’s files, making them inaccessible, and demands a ransom payment to decrypt them. The ransomware may also encrypt the computer’s Master File Table (MFT) or the entire hard drive. Thus, ransomware is a denial-of-access attack that prevents computer users from accessing files since it is intractable to decrypt the files without the decryption key.

Electronic devices like computers, smartphones or tablets have become inseparable elements of people’s lives and businesses. They have changed the way we communicate, work, study, buy things and travel. But what if all of a sudden we are refused to use e.g. the computer at our work and we lose the access to our important data that are the basis of the uninterrupted workflow? How much are we capable to pay in order to get our data back? The best solution is not to digress about what to do if we are hacked, but to stay protected.

Ransomware really is as black as it is painted. It puts you in a difficult position, so you should definitely know how to protect yourself from it. Especially when you take into consideration the latest issues with the ransomware cryptoworm named, ironically enough, WannaCry.

About WannaCry – how one worm conquered the world

WannaCry, also known as WannaCrypt or WannaCrypt0r 2.0, is a ransomware type of malware targeted mainly at computers with Microsoft Windows, created by a group named Shadow Broker, who sent a malicious code on an auction somewhere in the pit of dark net.

The WannaCry attack was lately a massive cyberattack with approximately 300,000 victims worldwide, among which most victims were public institutions and offices (e.g. the NHS, an English healthcare system, FedEx, Renault, Nissan or Megafon). According to experts, WannaCry was scanning local networks while also encrypting the data, later infecting all the systems in the network that were not also updated (and therefore contain system bugs used by hackers). That is the reason why it spread all over the world so fast.

WannaCry encrypts the data and forces to pay the ransom via Bitcoin. What is worse, the ransom payment process is so complicated (and manual!), that it’s actually difficult to unlock the files, because hackers need to approve all cases of data decoding. In other words, even if a victim pays, it does not mean that a computer will be restored.

WannaCry hackers have already said that was just a beginning, and they will introduce new malware to further spread their ransomware worms. And users can now clearly see that it just a matter of several hackers and some unpatched, not updated and old operating systems to block even big a multinational delivery services company. How to protect yourself from such attacks then? Here’s our safety decalogue:

Bring ransomware down a peg with Open-E JovianDSS

As it has been described, the first line of protection against malicious software is to stick with a set of safety habits. Additionally, you should regularly back up all your business data. Generally, companies of all types should invest as much as possible in reliable backup mechanism.

Open-E JovianDSS reaches the data protection against ransomware expectations of all businesses of all sizes thanks to its Off-site Data Protection feature. This feature enables creating automatic snapshots of all your data and keeping them as multiple copies of data at different point in time and additionally asynchronously replicating them to either local or remote destinations as a backup. The rotational-snapshots and replication in Open-E JovianDSS are created according to an advanced retention-interval plan that can be set according to specific user needs. In case of a ransomware attack (or other disaster), your crucial data can be restored instantly from one of multiple snapshot or off-site backup copies.

So far, the Off-site Data Protection feature can be managed via the Command Line Interface (CLI). Stay in touch with Open-E as soon the feature will also be available via GUI, which makes the whole backup process easier and faster than ever. In the meantime, use our how to guide to set up Open-E JovianDSS Off-site Data Protection and High Availability .

]]>http://blog.open-e.com/wanna-smile-instead-of-wannacry-protect-your-data-from-ransomware/feed/0Benefits of a cluster over Ethernet HA Storage Solution with Open-E JovianDSShttp://blog.open-e.com/benefits-of-a-cluster-over-ethernet-ha-storage-solution-with-open-e-joviandss/
http://blog.open-e.com/benefits-of-a-cluster-over-ethernet-ha-storage-solution-with-open-e-joviandss/#respondThu, 11 May 2017 13:55:09 +0000http://blog.open-e.com/?p=48367Achieve continuous data availability for your mission-critical data and applications with the new Open-E JovianDSS Advanced Metro HA Cluster Feature Pack. In this article we would like to provide you with some basic info about the benefits of implementing such a solution in your environment. Read on!

What are the benefits of an HA Cluster over Ethernet?

The Ethernet High Availability Cluster functionality in Open-E JovianDSS is available with the new Advanced Metro HA Cluster Feature Pack. Such a cluster is built of two nodes where each node has its own hard drives attached directly to the node and (after internal conversion of the protocol) indirectly served over Ethernet and shared with the other node. Benefits of this solution:

Flexible configuration options with mirroring between storage at each location on a distance of a few feet (meters), e.g. implemented in one rack, up to 50 miles (80km) via Fibre Optic Ethernet as a (Stretched) Metro Storage Cluster. The solution can also be used with nodes running as virtual machines, eg. VMware SVA (Storage Virtual Appliance).

Cost-effective data protection as the solution does not require using JBODs, and it’s possible to use a commodity server in one enclosure with SATA drives inside.

Easy to configure and manage thanks to an intuitive software design and GUI which make the solution easier than any other on the market.

Outstanding performance thanks to support for 40 Gigabit Ethernet cards which provides a highly efficient and reliable environment with low latency.

High reliability and redundancy by eliminating single points of failure thanks to mirrors between local and Remote Disks.

Continuous availability of physical or virtual environments with all your mission-critical data and applications located on them with failover functionality for SMB, NFS and iSCSI. In case one node fails, the other one takes over its services and the pools from the first node are immediately activated on the other node.

Load-balancing on both nodes due to active pools on both nodes to utilize their full potential.

How to build an Advanced Metro High Availability Cluster?

Now that you have learned the basics about a Cluster over Ethernet HA Storage Solution with Open-E JovianDSS, you should go through an example setup with-step-by-step instructions.

In our how-to document we present a single bond, with a pool created with 4 disks in each mirror group: 2 local and 2 remote ones. In case of a failure, all mirror groups will remain redundant with 2 disks in each mirror.

Read this resource and deploy your own High Availability Metro Cluster architecture over Ethernet with Open-E JovianDSS.

]]>http://blog.open-e.com/benefits-of-a-cluster-over-ethernet-ha-storage-solution-with-open-e-joviandss/feed/0Cluster-in-a-Box setups with Open-E JovianDSShttp://blog.open-e.com/cluster-in-a-box-setups-with-open-e-joviandss/
http://blog.open-e.com/cluster-in-a-box-setups-with-open-e-joviandss/#respondTue, 04 Apr 2017 08:03:28 +0000http://blog.open-e.com/?p=48324Open-E JovianDSS provides unlimited options to architect HA storage environments with SMB/CIFS, NFS and iSCSI protocols, and is the answer to almost any storage requirement, either as a single node, a virtualized HA setup or a Big Data cluster environment. The software is also highly flexible, which means it can be used in various cluster setups. In this article, we’d like to show you one of the many possible HA setups: a Cluster-in-a-Box.

A Cluster-in-a-Box system holds two servers and a common set of direct attached hard drives within one server enclosure. Since all necessary connections are pre-configured between the internal components, the system simplifies the physical setup and deployment of a two-node High Availability storage cluster. In order to avoid Single Points of Failure (SPOF) all system components (e.g. power supplies, fans, etc.) are redundant . The SAS hard drives, shared with both cluster nodes, are configured as a mirror (RAID 1) or as a RAID-Z so as to achieve additional redundancy.

Open-E JovianDSS guarantees that both servers are utilized to the maximum, and at the same time it and enables load balance on both nodes. It is a compact and complete cluster solution that can be installed in a standard rack, which takes significantly less space than a standard multi-server solution. Of course, the system can be easily scaled up in future setups by adding external JBODs, if needed. All in all, in case a node failure appears, the other node repossesses all resources during failover and serves the nodes constantly.

Examples for Cluster-in-a-Box setups

The EUROstor ES-8700 CLB as well as the AIC HA401-LB2 are both 4U 24-Bay Cluster-in-a-Box solutions that are Open-E JovianDSS Certified High Availability Ready. They are offering high-availability in an active-active configuration. Both storage solutions support 12Gbs SAS and come with two Server Boards (one per node). Overall cluster performance is significantly increased as both nodes process I/Os and provide simultaneous and balanced access to the logical devices. The systems provide the following benefits:

]]>http://blog.open-e.com/cluster-in-a-box-setups-with-open-e-joviandss/feed/0Open-E JovianDSS update 19 with Ethernet HA Cluster optionhttp://blog.open-e.com/open-e-joviandss-update19-advanced-metro-ha-cluster-feature-pack/
http://blog.open-e.com/open-e-joviandss-update19-advanced-metro-ha-cluster-feature-pack/#respondTue, 21 Mar 2017 13:27:56 +0000http://blog.open-e.com/?p=48267Open-E released a major update for its software-defined storage application, and the Open-E JovianDSS update 19 is now available on our website! The main feature of this update is the Ethernet HA Cluster functionality that can be used with the new Advanced Metro HA Cluster Feature Pack. Learn more about the update and download it on our website now.

Cluster over Ethernet HA Storage Solution with Open-E JovianDSS

Open-E JovianDSS enables you to architect High Availability storage environments for SMB/CIFS, NFS and iSCSI protocols with High Availability Clusters via Ethernet, SAS or Fibre Channel connections. With such solution users benefit from highest reliability and redundancy by eliminating single points of failure, as well as from a continuous availability of physical or virtual environments with all data and applications located on them. The new Open-E JovianDSS Advanced Metro HA Cluster Feature Pack enables users to build a High Availability Cluster with two nodes connected via Ethernet.

This type of clustering ensures a constant access to all your mission-critical data and applications even in case of a massive failure. For an efficient use of all hardware resources and uninterrupted workflow, continuous availability and data protection, all nodes are running in an active mode. An Ethernet Cluster solution is also highly flexible, as it can be implemented either in one rack or can be used as a Metro Storage Cluster / Stretched Metro Storage Cluster.

How does it work exactly?

A Cluster over Ethernet consists of two separate nodes. Let’s call those nodes Node1 and Node2. Both Node1 and Node2 have their own hard drives attached directly to them. Consequently, all hard drives on Node1 are shared with Node2, and the other way round as Node1 and Node2 are connected directly to each other over Ethernet. This way, after an internal conversion of the protocol, each node can “see” all the hard drives in the cluster, but the counter node’s drives are marked as ‘Remote Drives’. Cluster redundancy in turn is achieved thanks to mirrors between the local and Remote Drives. Strictly speaking, the data is being duplicated by mirroring the drives from one server to another system.

Since the connection of cluster communication and data mirroring between nodes are via Ethernet, the nodes might be located even up to 50 miles / 80 km apart.

As an active-active dual node cluster, the system provides load balance for the used protocols due to active pools on both nodes. This way, in case Node1 fails, Node2 takes over its services and the pools from Node1 are immediately activated on Node2. The same procedure is undertaken in case of Node2 failure, which means load balance on both nodes enables their full resources utilization.

Open-E JovianDSS High Availability Feature Packs

To sum up, Open-E offers two options to create a High Availability Cluster environment:

Update 19 – there’s more!

Update 19 includes also S.M.A.R.T. attributes in the logs. With this type of system monitoring, all disks are now available in the log files of Open-E JovianDSS, so that users can easily detect indicators of drive reliability and avoid disk failure. To view the whole list of new features, updates and fixes, read the Release Notes >>

]]>http://blog.open-e.com/open-e-joviandss-update19-advanced-metro-ha-cluster-feature-pack/feed/0MobiosPush – Nagios client for iOS devices: Configuration and usage guidehttp://blog.open-e.com/mobiospush-nagios-client-for-ios-devices-configuration-and-usage-guide/
http://blog.open-e.com/mobiospush-nagios-client-for-ios-devices-configuration-and-usage-guide/#respondThu, 23 Feb 2017 08:00:52 +0000http://blog.open-e.com/?p=48212Android users have already been provided with step-by-step instructions on how to install aNag, an Android application for Nagios – now it’s time for iOS users.

As you may already know, applications for Nagios allow you to control your system status wherever you are. Learn how to install, connect and use MobiosPush, an application for Nagios that enables an easy monitoring of your Open-E software on you iOS device.

First, you should have your Nagios system already configured and running. The system should be accessible on your device. Find more information in the official Nagios doumentation.

Installation of the Nagios client application

Install the MobiosPush application on your Apple device.

1. Go to the AppStore and find the “MobiosPush” application. There is also a possibility to proceed with a remote installation by visiting the web AppStore.

2. Click “INSTALL” to install the application. Next, click “ACCEPT“. After the application is installed on your smartphone, click “OPEN“. A relevant icon will appear on your applications list.

Connecting to the Nagios system

Establish a connection to the Nagios system and receive status information.

1. After you open the application for the first time you will see a notification “Settings missing” – this means that no connected Nagios servers were found. After confirming the message, the application will take you to the server configuration screen.

2. The SETTINGS screen provides all the details of your running Nagios instance:

Instance name – name under which it will appear in your MobiosPush application

There are several other settings also available for an advanced and fine-tuned installation.

NOTE: Remember to finish the URL address with a slash “/” sign, as the URL should direct to the CGI folder (usually named “‘cgi-bin folder”), not a single file.

Basic usage of MobiosPush

1. Go to the “Hosts” tab to see the list of servers monitored by your Nagios software.

2. To see a detailed list of all system services on the servers that are monitored by your Nagios software, you can go to the “Services” tab. A service that works correctly is shown on a light green background.

3. If a server is not available or if there are other problems with it, you will see it highlighted in red color.

4. To see more details of the problem you can switch to the “Problems” tab which shows a detailed view of the issues. This view shows only those servers and/or services that aren’t working properly at the moment.

5. By tapping on a problem’s title you can go to the screen with more details.

System notifications

2. The application can display notifications when systems or a service are down as well as when they are restored and are working properly again. By default the sounds of “bad” and “good” notifications are different, of course both types are configurable in the application and can be replaced with custom sounds. Notifications generated by MobiosPush behave like any other iOS notifications.